Sugar caster (part of a service)

Meissen Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This object was originally part of one of the most celebrated porcelain dinner services produced in the eighteenth century. The service, which numbered approximately 3000 pieces, was made for Heinrich, Count von Brühl (1700–1763), the director of the Meissen factory. It is commonly referred to as the “Swan service” due to the motif of swans executed in low relief that appears on most of the components of the service. This composition of the swans swimming amid reeds is based on an etching of 1654 by Wenceslaus Hollar after Francis Barlow (ca. 1626–1702). Bruhl commissioned the service in 1737, and due to its size and complexity, it took approximately four years to produce.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art